Re: [PATCHES] Ant configuration

* Peter Eisentraut <peter_e(at)gmx(dot)net> wrote:
|
| * Ant needs to be installed. Of course this is not that much of a
| problem because you can simply install it. However, in automated build
| environments this might not be so easy, so people are just going to opt to
| leave out the JDBC driver.

This can be solved by including the ant binaries.

| * Ant doesn't provide an exit status; you have to watch the build to see
| if it works. This is unacceptable.

Hmm. Anybody with a solution here ?

|
| * In numerous attempts I have failed to convince Ant to place the built
| files in a tree different from the source tree. This really makes it a
| pain to build for multiple architectures (in Java, architecture =
| different jdk).

<javac srcdir="${src}"
destdir="${build}"
classpath="xyz.jar"
debug="on"
/>

Is that what you want ?

|
| * Ant doesn't support gcj last I checked. This is a real tragedy because
| gcj is the only free(tm) Java compiler available that seems to have a real
| future. Ant doesn't support Kaffe very well, btw.

It does support it now according to the documentation. I think open source
jikes has a better future as a compiler, but it is not free in the GNU sense.

| * The Ant language is not nearly as powerful as the stuff you can do in
| Makefiles.

Well, make doesn't solve the build problems for Java. Ant is made to remedy the
problems with make and create and easier to use build tool for Java apps. The
adoption rate of Ant suggests that the developers have been doing something
right ;-)

|
| * Ant is, well, different. I have personally spent a lot of effort to
| make all parts of PostgreSQL build the same way. Every new language has
| to reinvent configuration and build management: Perl MakeMaker -- total
| junk, Python distutils -- no thanks, Tcl -- well, at least they had the
| right idea. Ant -- one more thing to go wrong. Currently, everything you
| want to switch and change about the build of PostgreSQL you communicate to
| the configure script. How do you change the Java compiler? Good question
| -- not even the Ant manual can answer that because it depends on your
| particular distribution.

From the Ant manual :

It is possible to use different compilers. This can be selected with
the "build.compiler" property.

|
| The problem is that Ant is a completely new and different tool that we
| have to deal with, but it doesn't actually solve a problem that hasn't
| been solved already.

It solves some of the problems with make and it runs easily on platforms
like Windows and Mac.

When Ant 2.0 comes it will be a even more general task/build system as it will
allow for scheduling ala cron as well. But that is off-topic ;-)

--
Gunnar Rønning - gunnar(at)polygnosis(dot)com
Senior Consultant, Polygnosis AS, http://www.polygnosis.com/